Video of the Day: William Shatner Is Iron Man (and He ‘Rules’)

A new must-see video from William Shatner is going viral. It features Star Trek’s original Kirk recording take after take of "I Am Iron Man" for his new album Seeking Major Tom. Check it out below plus find out why Shatner is headed to The View next week.

Shatner is Iron Man

In just 48 hours this video has racked up 1/4 million views. People can’t get enough Shatner!

The video from the Shatner Project features William Shatner laying down vocals for his rendition of the classic metal hit Iron Man from his new album Seeking Major Tom. The album is due on October 11th. More details (and pre-order) at cleorecs.com.

Shatner Rules coming next week – headed to ‘The View’

Proving that continues to be the king of all media, Shatner also has a new book coming out next week. His latest tome is titled "Shatner Rules: Your Key to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large." The book offers what is described as a "collection of rules, illustrated with stories from Bill’s illustrious life and career."

I ghostwrote for Trek 1987 and found it was TIME to bring back Kirk in the Generations movie.Same time designed the Mars rovers.Here’s Life on Mars Captain. http://t.co/UHUpZ5oq Mars People,animals,fossils,giant statues in cliffs.

That book reminds me of the History Channel doc Shat made a few years ago. It was called… “How William Shatner Changed the World” or “Changed the Universe” or something like that. Anyone else remember it?

@11. I remember as a teenager, several of us in the neighborhood worked to make up words to the Star Wars main theme, and then we recorded in on cassette. And you know what, if sounded a lot better that Shat’s horrid Iron Man. Take away that fact that this is a “crazy Shat” thing, and it just sounds plain horrid…like shattering glasses horrid.

The original Rocket Man song he did years ago was genius. This Iron Man song though is an insult t the human ear. He is just screaming the song like anyone could do….BFD

I am sure it will be auto-tuned and cleaned up, but it also reminds me of when my High School buddies and I used to scream Ramones songs while the guitarist and I, on bass, would keep turning our respective amps up to compete. “One Louder,” as they say. We also did a kick-ass “Batman Theme.”

The Shat should ‘keep it simple,’ and take advantage of his qualities as he has done in music more than once. Metal seems outside of his comfort zone.

My mother was not a shatner fan , she thought he was good as Kirk but was past hus use by date, that is until she watched an episode of Boston Legal one evening. Now she will watch anything the guy is on.

Wonder what Kirk would have made of Olivier Wild had he ever encountered her in his travels.

@23. Well, the drunk squirrel video had 6.6 million views. It would take the same level of plot twisting to work Shatner back into the franchise as the drunk squirrel – so would either situation be that compelling?

Oh, this just gets better, Cat vs. Watermelon had north of 17 million views, and pissed off cat is fast approaching 25 million. People will watch paint dry on YouTube, this is hardly the best indicator that people will be flocking to the theaters to see Shat strap on the Phaser belt again.

Shanter is un-stoppable, not only this CD comes out in Oct but so does his DVD of THE CAPTAINS. Then there is that book…. I hope it never ends.

I still listen to his CD of TRANSFORMED MAN…. it drives my wife crazy when I start to sing “It was a very good year” with Shatner. He may not sing like Sinatra (no one does anymore, Jimmy Darren is close) but it has a certain nuance to it that I like.

Hey, I didn’t buy the Transformed Man CD because I thought Shatner’s rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man was beautiful. It’s hilarious. But the joke is that Shatner wasn’t in on the joke. He was serious. NOW he’s in on it. He gets that it’s funny how serious he was when he did those recordings.

The new stuff is still funny, but in a nostalgic way, poking fun at the way he used to be. It’s a different kind of funny now.

@25 “Oh, this just gets better, Cat vs. Watermelon had north of 17 million views, and pissed off cat is fast approaching 25 million. People will watch paint dry on YouTube, this is hardly the best indicator that people will be flocking to the theaters to see Shat strap on the Phaser belt again.”

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha LOL LOL LOL LOL Well Said — you make this point so much better than anyone else has tried here!

I’ve been through my mid-life crisis, but I’ve never heard of a late-life crisis. Perhaps that what’s afflicting Mr. Shatner right now. Some kind of “rage against the darkness” angst that drives him to perform these kinds of stunts.

I think so much of Captain Kirk is in William Shatner, including the Kirk who never had to face death before, not the hardness of his own. But at 80 years old, it is surely something he realizes is now sooner rather than later. He does not, in other words, have another 80 years to go, unless he is the recipient of some miracle life elongation breakthrough in science. Maybe he has trouble dealing with that; he’s had a long and rewarding life, and it’s still producing for him — not exactly auspicious circumstances for the contemplation of your own mortality.

34. dmduncan: ” I think so much of Captain Kirk is in William Shatner, including the Kirk who never had to face death before…” Great metaphor. And stretching that metaphor to include “Star Trek V,” maybe William Shatner thinks he won’t die as long as he is not alone. According to the superstition, when the fans lose interest, that’s when he’ll die. So we can’t afford to lose interest can we? I know that death is on his mind. I saw Mr. Shatner and Mr. Nimoy on stage together at the Star Trek convention last year in Vancouver. It was a great afternoon with a lot of lighthearted chatter, until they were about to leave the stage. Mr. Shatner said to the audience, I think you’ll be reading one of our obituaries before the year is out. The audience frankly booed him and Mr. Nimoy pursed his lips as if to say, “Shhhhh!” Fortunately, death didn’t happen. Still, there are people his age who manage to remain in the spotlight in an age-appropriate manner. Joel Gray (who’s one year younger) is on Broadway in “Anything Goes” and Rita Moreno (also a year younger) is opening a show on Broadway about her life. I just watched he dancing this evening. She’s full of energy and dignified. That’s what 80 should be like. Mr. Shatner’s almost embarrassing scream for attention is bordering on the behavior of reality TV stars. He doesn’t have to be a buffoon. All he has to do is… Read more »

After witnessing this terrible, but yet hilarious, performance, I’m of the opinion that William Shatner wants to be considered the world’s worst singer. He knows he doesn’t have a good singing voice, and being merely mediocre would be boring and unremarkable. So he’s really hamming it up to stand out from everybody else.

The great thing Shatner displayed in the original Trek was his absolute commitment to the material, despite how ridiculous it might’ve been. Even on the worst episodes of the original series, Shatner played it full tilt. I believe it’s this quality, more than anything else, that has kept his career going until today. The “Iron Man” clip is just one more example of Shatner doing what he does best.

@40. It’s worship. You are several others here, in article after article, praise Shat no matter what the topic, with never a a critical thought making any appearance.

You can’t give Harry, myself and others a black mark mark for constantly being critical of Shat, without also giving the Shat worshipers such as Lostrod a black mark for never being critical of Shat. You cast your die with Shat worshiping, so live with it and stop trying to pretend otherwise.

Holy crappola! LOL! No, William Shatner is not singing any melody. He is talking the song, or yelling/screaming it at one point, as he always does. His normal talking voice has a melodic tone to it, which makes him good at doing dialogue (good thing if you are an actor) but it is not singing. I actually thought it was terrible sounding, but you’ve got to give Shatner credit for giving it a go. I guess he likes different styles of music, is not too old-fashioned and stuffy and wants to do his version of songs that he likes, for whatever reason. There’s a wannabe singer in me – I would like to be able to sing my favourite songs and I suspect, in fact, know that I will sound terrible, but if I had the money etc that Shatner has, then maybe I might do what he is doing and who knows, somebody might actually enjoy my rendition, especially when played at a party where everybody is drunk, stoned, out of it…:)LOL Sometimes you need to take William Shatner seriously. Other times, you can’t. It is a matter of discernment. #43 Those who can, do it (to the best of their ability). Those who can’t or won’t, criticise… Lostrod is right. It is not about worship. It is about acknowledging effort and energy of a person’s activities in the present, in the now, and not griping about what this person may or may not have been/done in the past… Read more »

Yea, we can leave it at that. However, you and Keachick of course don’t thave to admit to worship, and perhaps that is too strong a work, but I would ask anyone here on this site who has been awhile to come up with an example for me of where Lostrod or Keachick was critical of Shatner. Guess what folks, they never have been.

An objective person viewing the history of posts by Harry, Keachick, Lostrod and I who assessed all of our posts on this website over time, would necesarily draw the conclusion that Harry and I are consistently way too negative on Shat and that Lostrod and Keachick are consistently way too positive on Shat, and that as a group, we are probably to a degree…ful of shit in different ways concerning Shat.

#46 – MJ Thanks, MJ. However, before you get into a statistical analysis of postings, let me me provide a caveat. For the past year I was deployed and had limited Internet access. I tried to access this site daily, but barely had time to read posts, much less input a lot of posts. The few times this past year I did post was when something really hit me. Unfortunately, that usually involved what I felt were unjustified derogatory remarks about Mr. Shatner. Often unrelated to the topic My take is that an artist is always open for review and critique, but it should be on a professional, not personal level. If I responded more frequently to you is because you tend to address your criticism at the personal level. Over the past year, if I had been allowed more net time I am sure I would have posted a wider range of opinion. It didn’t work out that way. I had to be selective. I tried to explain my situation in a previous discussion only to have someone to say they were insulted that I brought up my military situation. Now the good news (at least for me) is that I’m back from my deployment and have more Internet access and will be able to posts more on various topics. However, I still believe that critiquing a artist’s performance does not have to veer off into unrelated physical insults. I guess I am old school. Anyway, here’s to a… Read more »